In early March 2025, the 2024 Arnold Classic Physique champion Wesley Vissers was dethroned by Mike Sommerfeld at the 2025 Arnold Classic. Post-show, Vissers sat with his fiancée and trainer, Marly Nooijen, and coach Stefan Kienzl to detail the unfortunate events that led to his unseating and fifth-place result.
Vissers and his coach felt Vissers achieved peak form as the 2025 Arnold Classic neared, surpassing his ‘24 Arnold Classic package. Then, the unexpected happened the day before his flight from the Netherlands to the Arnold Classic in Columbus, OH. “
At the beginning of the day, I felt fine. As the day went on, I started to feel worse,” Vissers recalled.
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Peaks and Lows
Despite months of intense prep, Vissers’ appetite was gone — unusual at that stage of prep. He was plagued with severe vomiting and diarrhea, suggesting food poisoning. Severely dehydrated, Vissers’s weight plummeted from a bloated 115 to 108.1 kilograms, a number he hadn’t seen since he was an amateur in 2018.
This was disastrous for Vissers’ metabolism. “You have to understand that in Wesley’s case, his baseline calorie intake [to maintain his weight] is already as high as many people’s off-season peak calories,” Kienzl explained.
“I was training but couldn’t feel [muscles working]. There wasn’t a balance of electrolytes, so I felt lifeless,” Vissers said days before competing.
Battling Through Adversity
Vissers bounced back on show day, though his aesthetics suffered greatly despite extreme carb loading to fill out his muscles. He remained hopeful, stating, “I felt like I could win [the 2025 Arnold Classic].”
Vissers’s legs, being a weak point, suffered the most. His coach pointed out the detrimental effects of a caloric deficit on new muscle tissue.
New tissue needs new veins [to feed it]. Those areas are the first to break down without adequate nutrition.
—Stefan Kienzl
“It was a terrible end to all the work we put it,” Vissers added. Kienzel believes Vissers’ setbacks are a wake-up call, as the physical stress and illness were a sign of declining resilience from not having taken any breaks in five years. “The acceptance that you can’t push through everything when pushing is your job is the hardest to understand,” said Kienzl.
Future Plans
While Vissers’ relentless drive pushed him to prove himself at the Detroit Pro Show in late March, he was urged to take a year off to rebuild and come back stronger. “Sometimes you have to take a step back to take a thousand steps forward,” Vissers reflected.
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Featured image: @wesleyvissers on Instagram
